2 Chronicles 7 – Fire
comes down and consumes the burnt offering. Even the priests cannot enter the
Temple “because the glory of the Lord filled the Lord’s house” (7:2). The
people’s prayer in response to the coming down of fire is to say, “For he is
good, for his steadfast love endures forever” (7:3). The offerings are made in
the court before the Temple, for the altar could not hold all that Solomon
offered. “For the next seven days Solomon and all Israel celebrated the
Festival of Shelters [Sukkoth]” (7:8). After the festival, they hold a solemn
assembly, and on the 23rd day of the 7th month, Solomon
sends everyone home.
The Lord appears to Solomon in the night and says that “at
times I might shut up the heavens so that no rain falls, or command grasshoppers
to devour your crops, or send plagues among you. Then if my people who are
called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn
from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and
restore their land” (7:13-14). “I have chosen this Temple and set it apart to
be holy—a place where my name will be honored forever. I will always watch over
it, for it is dear to my heart” (7:16). And he promises that Solomon will
always have a successor.
“But if you turn aside and forsake my statues and my
commandments . . .and serve other gods and worship them, then I will pluck you
up from the land that I have given you; and this house, which I have
consecrated from my name, I will cast out of my sight, and will make it a
proverb and a byword among all peoples” (7:19-20). People will pass by it and
ask why, and then will know that it is because they have abandoned God.
2 Chronicles 8 – Solomon’s
reign is a time of building up, not only the house of the Lord, but also the
cities King Hiram had given him. He captures Hamath-zobah and builds Tadmor and
storage towns in Hamath. He builds
fortified cities and towns for his chariots, cavalry and military stores. The Eerdman’s guide
shows that Solomon’s kingdom sits astride the major north-south trade route of
the day.
The remnants of Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Amorites and
Jebusites are reduced to forced labor—a situation the writer tells us continues
to his day. Israelites are not reduced to slavery; instead they become
soldiers, officers and commanders of his cavalry, etc. He brings the Pharaoh’s
daughter out of the house of David to a house of her own. “’My wife must not
live in King David’s palace, for the Ark of the Lord has been there, and it is
holy ground.’” (8:11)
He offers burnt offering to God before the vestibule of
Temple and organizes the priests and Levites as his father ordained in his day.
He obtains gold from Ophir (an unknown place), carried by the ships of Huram.
Augustine’s Treatise
on the Profit of Believing
15 - Put the case
that we have not as yet heard a teacher of any religion. Lo we have undertaken
a new matter and business. We must seek, I suppose, them who profess this
matter, if it have any existence. There HAS to be a
better English translation than this!
Suppose that we have found different persons holding
different opinions, and through their difference of opinions seeking to draw
persons each one to himself: but that, in the mean while, there are certain
pre-eminent from being much spoken of, and from having possession of nearly all
peoples. Whether these hold the truth, is a great question: but ought we not to
make full trial of them first, in order that, so long as we err, being as we
are men, we may seem to err with the human race itself?
While the translation is very
opaque, I think he is saying that we must try to find people to interpret the
Old Testament well. While there will always be differences of opinion among
scholars, we should seek out those who are highly respected and see what they
say.
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